Avoid the food carts!

Lurking diseases

The Bangalore Traffic Police and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) may have done their bit to evict vendors from pavements, on the thoroughfares in the City but they do nothing to control or regulate the increasing number of makeshift carts and eateries around schools.

Most prominent schools have chaat wallahs, samosa sellers, juice and ice cream vendors, who station their carts at the entrance of the school and along the side walls, in the morning between 8 and 10 and in the evening between 3 and 4.  

What is disturbing is that these carts are dirty and the food sold to children can be carriers of diseases like gastroenteritis, typhoid and cholera.

   Most of the schools have a canteen and parents also pack snacks for their children in tiffin boxes, yet the children are attracted towards the food sold from these carts.
Eating off roadside carts has its own charm but it is fraught with a lot of risks.

Metrolife visited a couple of schools, interacted with the parents and the doctors to
understand the dangers of eating food sold from carts.

  While the traffic police don’t lose any chance to evict vendors in and around shopping centres, they have done nothing to regulate vendors around schools.

Conceding this, an official from the traffic police department says, “Yes, this is one aspect that we haven’t looked into as yet. We are busy regulating and streamlining the mismanaged private transport in schools. I think once that is over we will take this up.”
The official says that if caught, vendors will have to pay a fine of Rs 550.

Health officers of the BBMP claim that they go on surprise visits once in 15 days around schools in the City.

“We make sure that cut fruits and juice aren’t sold near schools. If carts are found to be selling unhygienic food, they are evicted immediately,” explains Dr Balu, health officer, BBMP (east zone). 

Dr Kalpana Janardan, senior consultant – internal medicine, Apollo Hospitals, notes that the fluctuating weather is just perfect for bacteria and viruses to multiply and
become aggressive.

“There are not less than five cases daily of people walking into the hospital with complaints of gastroenteritis,” she states. Kalpana observes that vendors hang around schools hoping to make some fast money and children are an easy catch for them.

“Eating off carts aggravates the chances of contracting water-borne diseases such as typhoid and cholera. The carts are unhygienic and most of the time even the water used to make the chaats is not clean,” she says.

Dr Kalpana feels that there is no nutrition in roadside food, so children should avoid eating off these carts.

Most parents say that they caution their children against eating out. Despite this, they are tempted to indulge in roadside food once in a while. So the parents advise their children to buy food from carts that are hygienic and stationed in clean surroundings.

Babitha Saldhana, a mother of two, says, “During our time we used to eat off the roadside carts but today the City is so polluted and the water contaminated. Eating out is sure to trigger some illness or the other. It is unsafe.”

Sanjay Simha, another parent, confesses that he grew up eating from chaat wallahs.
“My children and I eat from vendors who sell good, clean and hygienic food. I feel that if the surroundings are clean then there’s no harm eating from these vendors but there must be some amount of control when doing so,” he cautions.

But Veena Thimmaiah, a teacher and a parent of two, is not happy about her children eating off carts.

“They do have access to the rubbish that is sold outside the schools, but they have never eaten street food. If anything, they disapprove of it more than I do,” concludes Veena.